


Hold the Mirror for the Ghost

by knune



Category: Star Trek XI
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Away Mission Gone Wrong, Brain Injury, False Pregnancy, M/M, Maybe mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-15
Updated: 2012-07-15
Packaged: 2017-11-10 00:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/460172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knune/pseuds/knune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy has the hands of a healer but sometimes that just isn't enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold the Mirror for the Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Maybe this was inspired by the newest episode of Tia and Tamara. I said maybe. Title is from the AA Bondy song, [The Twist](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Bt7U5-OXk). I don't consider this AU but since none of it takes place in a tin can in space, I suppose it COULD be labeled AU...this all confuses me.

*

McCoy comes home from work to find the house eerily quiet. There’s no vidscreen blaring in the living room, no music blasting at ear drum bursting decibels. There’s no mess in the kitchen, no replicator beeping a hot meal into existence, no click and clank of utensils and dishes. There’s just silence and McCoy begins to worry.

“Jim?” He moves through the house, shedding clothes as he walks. McCoy toes off his shoes in the hall, throws his coat on a chair in the kitchen, unbuttons his shirt as he steps into the bedroom. It’s been a long day and every shift seems longer than the previous one. Longer and longer, until they all start melting together into some barbaric mix of blood and broken bones and diseased organs. He fixes what he can but it’s never enough. He’s not as good at this as he used to be. There’s living proof lurking between these walls.

“Jim, where are you?” Then he sees it, the light spilling out from the barely cracked open bathroom door, draping the carefully picked out hardwood flooring in spectrums of pale yellow and faint, dark shadows.

McCoy pushes the door open and finds Jim sitting on the floor, his back resting against the tub, his legs drawn up against his chest. Jim is wearing the same shirt he wore to bed last night, the same blue and white striped boxer shorts, and McCoy wonders just how long he’s been sitting here.

“What are you doing in here?” McCoy asks, crouching down in front of Jim’s folded in body. The light in Jim’s eyes blew out a long time ago but there’s something bright lurking in there, behind the irises of ocean and pin point pupils. Something McCoy really doesn’t like.

Jim’s hands are clenched together, hiding an object between his closed fingers. “Hey, Bones,” he says, bringing his hands up. “I have good news.”

“Do you?” McCoy pries at Jim’s fingers, lifting one at a time, and slowly unveils a white piece of plastic. He’s seen one of these before, seen them a lot actually but he deals in technology that far surpasses this kind of thing. He works with tricorders and regenerators, laser scalpels and hyposprays. He doesn’t handle home diagnostic tests but he’d recognize one anywhere. “Where did you get that?”

Jim shrugs but shoves the piece of plastic into McCoy’s hands. “It’s positive, Bones. Can you believe it?” A small smile creeps over his lips.

McCoy stares down at the plastic, at the little plus sign that’s looking straight back at him. His stomach churns in a way that’s all too familiar. He feels sick but mostly he feels like a failure. “Jim,” he whispers, the plastic hard between his fingers, the plus sign mocking him for a future he can’t have. “It’s a false positive.”

The smile slips from Jim’s lips and his brow furrows, bushy eyebrows drawing close together. “What?” His hands scramble for the plastic and he yanks it from McCoy’s grip. “No. It says positive.” He points to the symbol, over and over again, his finger tap dancing against the device.

McCoy wraps his hands against Jim’s bare knees and if he closes his eyes squeezes hard enough, he can almost pretend this is two years ago and they’re in a tin can floating through a dark and silent vacuum. He can almost see the sonic shower behind his lids, see Jim’s ridiculously gorgeous face grinning at him in the reflection of the mirror. He opens his eyes now and he sees none of that. Just a man curled up in front of a tub, fabricated visions of hope in his dim eyes.

He doesn’t know how to say this, doesn’t really know how to keep breaking off the pieces of someone’s damaged heart (it’s a lie, he’s actually an expert). “It’s not real. You don’t have the right organs to make it real.” He pulls the plastic from Jim’s hands and sets it up on the counter, out of sight. “You’re a man, you can’t have a baby.”

“I know that. They must have done something to me. Remember? When we visited Ilos? Something must’ve happened because it’s positive. They did this to me.”

McCoy reaches out and runs a hand through Jim’s shorn hair, his thumb running over the long and ugly scar stretching along the right side of his head. The scar screams of McCoy’s sloppy handiwork. “They didn’t do anything to you. We haven’t been to Ilos in over six years.”

“No, it was something they did.” Jim scoffs and pushes McCoy away from him. He climbs to his feet and leans against the counter. “It’s okay to be scared, you know? This is a big step for us.”

McCoy stands and places a cold hand against the back of Jim’s warm, warm neck. “I am scared,” he admits quietly and avoids looking in the mirror behind them. He doesn’t want to see what they’ve become over the years and how his hands have played into all of this.

Jim wraps his arms around McCoy’s neck and kisses him on the lips. It’s merely a brush of skin on skin but it’s comfortable and familiar and all too welcome these days. “It’ll be okay.”

McCoy just nods and puts Jim to bed. He helps him change into a clean t-shirt and boxers, tucks him in until he’s just a head peeking out from beneath a bundle of sheets and blankets. And McCoy waits, until Jim’s breathing has evened out, until he’s sure he’s hit REM.

Then he throws the test away, throws it into the recycler and holds down the button until all he hears is a satisfying crunch. This will all be forgotten about by morning, he’s sure of it, but this is going to leave a lingering hurt in his chest and the hole that’s already there is going to be stretched bigger and wider than ever before.

He falls asleep on the sofa, sometime around four am, a bottle of bourbon hanging loosely from his fingers. He doesn’t dream of a family, of bright eyed children with blonde hair and stupid grins. He doesn’t.

*

(end)

*

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to say that if a man really had a false positive on a pregnancy test, I'm fairly certain it's an indicator of testicular cancer. So, ignore that. Also, Ilos is from Mass Effect. Thanks for letting me borrow a planet, Commander Shepard!  
> 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover Art for "Hold the Mirror for the Ghost"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/548352) by [SkariCovers (skarlatha)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/pseuds/SkariCovers)




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